Mattachioni – Michael Eats

Location: 1617 Dupont Street, Toronto
Website: https://www.mattachioni.com/mattachioni-west

I previously tried the mortadella sandwich at Mattachioni and found it to be thoroughly delicious. Well, clearly this place knows their way around a tasty sandwich, because I just tried a couple more and they were both extremely tasty.

First up is the porchetta, which is as simple as it gets — it’s just a whole bunch of sliced porchetta on toasted sourdough. If the porchetta itself weren’t so good, this might have been too simple, but the tender, herby, and intensely flavourful pork shines brightly enough to not need any accompaniments.

The bread is great too, though it might have been a bit too aggressively toasted; I don’t think bread that good needs that level of crunchifying, not to mention the fact that it was so toasty that it was difficult to eat without wrecking the inside of your mouth.

I also tried the S. Marcobruno: “Tuna in olive oil, Egg, Tomato, Arugula, Radicchio,
Pickled red onion, Lemon.” I liked both sandwiches, but I think this one was the superior of the two, with a great balance between the meatiness from the tuna and richness from the egg, punched up with some delightfully zippy flavours. The bread was untoasted, and the quality level of the sourdough here is so high that I think that’s the way to go.

Location: 1617 Dupont Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.mattachioni.com/

If it weren’t for Toronto Life’s list of the best sandwiches in the city, there’s no way I would have ordered the mortadella sandwich at Mattachioni. Aside from the fact that the pizzas looked very, very good, the mortadella sandwich is quite bare bones — it’s just mortadella and fresh mozzarella on tomato focaccia bread.

But of course, sometimes the simplest things are the best. If you’re dealing with really good quality ingredients, less is more.

The contrast between the tender, salty mortadella and the creamy mozzarella works really well (fresh mozzarella has a radically different texture than the rubbery shrink-wrapped balls at the supermarket — it’s soft, creamy, and luxurious).

The fluffy, slightly chewy focaccia is quite good too, though I wish it had a bit more texture (it was soft throughout). It was also soaked through with olive oil; it gives the sandwich a nice greasy heft, though it might have been a little bit too much of a good thing.

Still, it’s a very tasty sandwich. I don’t think I’d put it on my list of the best in the city, but I don’t begrudge anyone for putting it on theirs.

I also got to try a little bit of the Margherita pizza, which was absolutely outstanding (I didn’t take a picture of that one, sadly, so you’ll just have to take my word that it looked and tasted amazing).

They have both custard and dulce de leche bomboloni for dessert (a.k.a. Italian doughnuts). I tried both, and while they were tasty, they definitely weren’t on the level of the sandwich or the pizza. They were a little bit too dense, with a slightly oily flavour.

Tag: Mattachioni

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